The First Book
by Rizelpalakka
Summary: The Croods are having a normal family dinner, fights and all. Guy develops a migraine and leaves for a drink...and gets another idea.
1. Family Dinner

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Croods.**

"Okay, I admit it." Guy sat down on a rock and pulled Eep Crood by his side. "I _like_ TooshyBottoms." TooshyBottoms was the name of the new dish Grug had began to serve every meal. "Are you happy ?"

"Yes!" shrieked Eep. "I'm so _glad_." It had been bothering her all week, especially since Grug had fussed day and night whether each and every person in the family liked it.

"TooshyBottoms?" Sandy made a face. "They're okay."

Ugga sat smoothed Sandy's hair. "Don't hurt Daddy's feelings, okay?"

"I like being honest," said Sandy, but she did stop.

Eep nudged him.

He looked up. "Uh...hi."

"You never did finish that story about the tiger," said Eep gently, pushing his cheek.

"I - I don't know." Guy turned back to his woodwork. "I...uh..."

"Soup's on!" they turned around and saw Grug, carrying big pieces of bark which served as trays, covered in a green, gooey mass with worms, roast bird and other things I won't bother to go into detail of. "Get your TooshyBottoms!"

Guy let out a groan. Eep gave him a vehement shove, as if to say, "Don't hurt his feelings."

"Why does everyone give me that look?" Guy sighed, loading his plate with TooshyBottom.

Grug seemed not to hear. He set everybody's plates down on the floor. The sunlight glinted in their eyes, but they were having a good time together.

"So!" he said. "Party Time Central is coming up?"

"What?" everybody said. _What incredible conversationalists we are_, Eep thought with a shake of her head.

"Party Time Central!" said Grug. To demonstrate, he jumped up and started dancing.

"AH!" shrieked Eep. She started to stand up. "Dad, you are so - "

Guy put a comforting arm around Eep to stop her. She put on a subdued look and slouched back down on her rock.

"Well, it _is_ going to be great," Grug whined. It was Ugga's turn to put an arm around him. He sat back down. Eep let out a relieved sigh, as if his dancing had offended her. This was met by a dirty look from Gran.

"It's inappropriate!" Eep couldn't control herself. "Think about the _kids_, Dad! Sandy and Thunk will be - will be - will be scarred for _life_!"

Although Guy was dying of curiosity to find out more about Party Time Central, he decided it was a bad time to ask about it.

That must have really hurt. Grug looked away, pretending he hadn't heard.

Guy chewed on a piece of TooshyBottom. He was glad to have a new family, but one of the cons of that was all the loud noise and fights. He knew he would have to hurry up and invent a medicine that helped headaches, because one was coming on right now.

Gran shrugged and continued to slurp up her food. "How about we go to the river and grab a drink?"

"Yes. I would like that _very_ much." Guy jumped up and ran to the river with Belt by his side. "Bye! I'll be back!"

Eep sighed. "See, Dad? You even scared Guy off!"

Again, Grug looked away, ignoring his daughter. Then he said, "My dancing isn't that bad."

Eep, Ugga, Sandy and Gran exchanged sarcastic countenances. "_Yeah_. Riiiiight."

"I'm sorry!" Grug said, throwing his hands up.


	2. By the River

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Croods.**

Meanwhile, Guy was slurping up water. It was probably almost as good for headaches as the medicine he planned to invent.

He watched the calm flowing of the river and the rocks. It was amazingly solitary. It was something that needed to be remembered years from then. Something that they could keep forever. Guy didn't want to make it into a story on the wall like Grug - he was aware that nobody from the future world would ever be able to interpret the strange marks on the stones unless Grug told them the story live.

His brain started to work. He grabbed an old bone, and with Belt's help he sharpened it. "I call it...the writing tool."

Belt smiled. "DUN DUN DUUUUUN!"

Guy smiled, too and returned to his work. After a lot of scavenging, he found two large, flat, rectangular pieces of stone. First, he wrote the first three symbols he could use to write:

ABC abc

After a lot of thinking, he wrote:

DEF def

GHI ghi

And so on.

Finally, he had compiled twenty-six symbols. The first stone was now filled with...

"The alphabet." He gave a meaningful look to Belt, who scrambled to get his arms in place.

"DUN DUN DUUUUUN!"

"Thank you." Guy went back to work. Then, he wrote:

The river flows.

The sound is a wonder to my ears.

I watch it with Belt by my side.

Because the idea of writing was new, and he had to press very hard to actually make a mark on the piece of stone, and he already had a headache, this took two hours to get done. When it was finished, Guy was so tired that he passed out.

When he came to, he saw Grug's face. He let out a yell and jumped back. _I never get used to that_, he thought.

"Where were you?" Grug interrogated fiercely.

"Uh...here," Guy said.

"I _know_ that." Grug put his face so close to Guy's that their noses almost touched. "What were you _doing_?"

"This," said Guy. He held up the two stones. "I call this one...a poem. And this one the alphabet."

"You have to memorize it?" Grug said.

"Yup." Guy looked down nervously. Grug would probably break it up into thousands of pieces any moment. He still hadn't forgotten the log incident, a situation he was still quite touchy about.

But he didn't. Instead, he picked it up and pointed to _A_. "What does this say?"

"It means ah. Ah...ah."

"Ah...ah."

"That's right...keep going."

"Ah."

"Uh...yeah." Guy shrugged. "That's about it. Oh, and it says _ey_. Say _ey_."

"Ey."

"Yeah, good."

They didn't realize that hidden beneath a huge rock were Ugga, Eep, Gran, Thunk and Sandy until they came out. "I want to read the alphabet too!" said Eep.

"Well, here." Guy slipped it into her hand. And he started to teach them all about the alphabet, and how Grug could put all his stories into rectangular flat stones like he'd done with his poem, instead of just using pictures.

So Grug started.

And his story is this one you've just finished.


End file.
